


if heartbreak tastes this bitter, why do you keep holding on?

by snisreal



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Best Friends Choi Soobin & Huening Kai, First Heartbreak, First Love, M/M, One-Sided Relationship, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27881653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snisreal/pseuds/snisreal
Summary: Kai can't imagine loving anyone more than he loves Soobin.He knows how people talk, but Kai can't bring himself to thinking there's anything wrong with the way he feels about his best friend. It's such a good feeling. Nothing can touch that.
Relationships: Choi Soobin/Huening Kai
Kudos: 28





	if heartbreak tastes this bitter, why do you keep holding on?

**i. guess she gave you things i didn't give to you**

Kai can't imagine loving anyone more than he loves Soobin.

He knows how people talk, but Kai can't bring himself to thinking there's anything wrong with the way he feels about his best friend. It's such a good feeling. Nothing can touch that.

(Besides, Kai has looked online. There may be a lot of people who claim that this is unnatural, but there are also a lot of people that are like him, or maybe not like him but still different, and they all exist. This is who they are, and it's okay. That's what those people say, and Kai has to prefer their ideas to the ones that say he deserves to die for loving Soobin.)

He thinks Soobin feels the same.

Kai can't explain it, but there's some sort of tension when they're in the room together. It makes Kai want to touch Soobin, hold Soobin, kiss Soobin, love Soobin, and he's been too scared to reach out like that yet, but it seems obvious that they're going to do that one day. He can see it in the way Soobin looks at him, the way his eyes soften, and the way he lets Kai sit a little closer to him than he does anyone else. There's something special between them. Kai thinks Soobin is his one true love.

And then there's the phone call.

Kai has always loved his after-school phone calls with Soobin. They don't have classes together because of the age-difference, but they can talk. And it's almost better outside of school, where no one is listening, and it's just them. Kai loves the sound of Soobin's voice in his ear. He loves to curl up with a blanket and pretend Soobin is with him, pretend Soobin is holding him and that they're having a nice little cuddle-chat. These thoughts warm Kai's chest.

And then Soobin says, "I'm going out with Yewon."

It takes a few moments for Kai to respond. Everything he knows is falling apart. Soobin can't be dating a girl. He's supposed to like Kai. They're supposed to be in love. They're supposed to wait for marriage to become legal, and then they're supposed to get married and be amazing together. Kai had it all planned out.

He doesn't remember the rest of the conversation. As soon as Soobin hangs up, Kai pulls his blanket over his head and cries, but silently, because he knows he can't let his parents hear him. He can't be weak.

Kai wonders what Yewon has that he doesn't. He wonders if it's her pretty hair or her nice smile or her attitude. Kai knows the truth. He knows it's because she's a girl. He knows that that's why Soobin won't love him. Kai is a boy, and he's always going to be a boy, and that means he's not what Soobin wants. Soobin wants Yewon, pretty and sweet and a girl. It doesn't matter what else Kai has to offer ( _his love, his heart, his whole self_ ) because Kai can't be a girl for Soobin.

When the tears stop coming, Kai decides that he has to move on.

**ii. but i couldn't stay away i couldn't fight it**

Music is what gives him hope.

It's kind of stupid. Soobin didn't even want to sing with him. He was going to ask Yewon, but Yewon and Yuna, his girlfriend partner up. So Kai took a chance and asked Soobin, and they agreed.

"I want to sing Confession of a Friend," Kai says when they meet up at Soobin's house to practice. Soobin gives him a look, and he continues, "That song, remember?"

And he starts to sing. Kai can't fight the smile as he sings, knowing that he's _really_ singing to Soobin.

Soobin doesn't seem to notice. "Oh, yeah, I know that song," he says.

"So we can sing it?" Kai asks, as he grabs Soobin's laptop and starts searching for sheet music online (which may be a _little_ illegal).

Soobin shrugs. And the duet comes, and he is giving him this look, and maybe they're pretending to sing to their girlfriends (or Soobin’s, since he’s pretty much dating Yuna just to make sure of his sexuality), but it makes Kai hope.

So Kai comes out. He doesn't want to hide who he is. He tells everyone at school, he tells his parents, he tells his bestfriend Yeonjun, he tells anyone he can. Kai is gay, and he's happy with it. He doesn't care what anyone else thinks.

Except he does. He doesn't like the way his dad doesn't quite know how to look at him anymore. He doesn't like the way some of the teachers don't smile at him like they used to. He doesn't like the way some kids at school glare at him. And he doesn't like the way Soobin no longer talks to him.

It hurts. It hurts more than a flat rejection would.

He sees Soobin in the hallways still. He sees Soobin with Yewon, and he sees Soobin kiss Yewon, and even though Kai knows that Soobin doesn't like him (may despise him, may hate everything he is), Kai still can't help but imagine what it would be like to be the one kissing Soobin.

He can't hate Yewon, of course. Maybe that stings a little bit too. Yewon is sweet and kind, and she bought him a shirt with a dolphin because "dolphins are gay sharks". She still talks to him and treats him like a normal person. Yewon is a great person.

And worst of all, she says, "I'm sorry Soobin hasn't . . . been great. I'll try talking to him for you."

So Kai resigns himself to getting over Choi Soobin. If Soobin isn't gay and doesn't even want to be friends with a gay guy and is perfectly happy with his perfect girlfriend, there's nothing Kai can do to change that.

(But he still wants Soobin so _bad_.)

**iii. i wish nothing but the best for you two**

When Soobin tells Kai that he's kissed Yuna, Kai feels sick. He knows what Soobin had with Yewon. But it's easier to pretend that that's a one-person-thing, and soon Soobin will realize that he's gay (or even bi) and he'll fall in love with Kai, when it's just Yewon. It's even easier to think this when there's the rumor of Yuna being gay.

Kai knows how horrible people treat non-heterosexuals. He feels bad for Yuna; he really does. They were never especially close, even when they were dating (they broke up after a month), but he hates that she has to deal with this. But if she's gay, then Soobin was her beard, and what if she was his beard?

Kai can't it. That would make everything different. It would make the silly half-hearted duets in Soobin's room mean more. It would mean that those long looks he thought he sometimes caught Soobin giving him were real. It would mean there was a possibility that Soobin felt half as much towards Kai as Kai felt towards Soobin.

But if they've kissed, even maybe _slept_ together, then what does Kai have to hope for?

"Why are you so upset? It's not like I had sex with her while the two of you were dating," he hears Soobin say, his tone biting and awful and Kai hates himself for loving Soobin sometimes. He doesn't understand how he can love someone who can say such horrible things and treat him so horribly and be so _horrible_. And when he looks up into Soobin's eyes, he doesn't see that gentleness, that kindness, that made him fall in love. (He barely sees anything of the boy he fell in love with, not the kind eyes, not the gentle smile, not the clothes or the music or the unashamedly Soobin-ness.)

Kai slams his hands on the table and stands up. "You know, Soobin, you're such a jerk sometimes," he bites out and grabs his tray, storming out of the cafeteria.

He won't cry. He won't. This is not the boy he fell in love with. He shouldn't cry over the horrible person Choi Soobin has become.

Even as he thinks this, tears fill his eyes. Still, Kai tells himself that he's crying over the loss of a boy, who, in all honesty, was probably lost long ago. Kai was just holding on too long.

As soon as Kai let go and moved on, everything would be better.

**iv. who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?**

_I need to get over him,_ is the first thought that comes to Kai's mind when he wakes up in bed with Soobin.

Well, no, it's not the first. The first is _God, I love him._ It's not even the second. (That's _Holy shit, last night was amazing; I feel amazing. Is that his stupid teenage hormone or just Soobin?_ ) And then there are some others, like _What can I do to get Soobin into bed with me again?_ or _He's so cute when he's sleeping,_ but eventually that thought does surface. It pulls everything good in Kai's heart down and twists itself around his stomach. He does need to get over Soobin. He knows this. He can't keep pining after his best friend. It makes him miserable, and it only ever seems to cause problems between them.

The problem is that Kai doesn't know how to go about his life _not_ loving Soobin. He feels like he's done it his whole life. He's at least done it for the majority of his life, and he doesn't think he can just shake that off. He doesn't even want to, really. He _loves_ Soobin; he feels it from his toes to his ears. Every time he looks at Soobin, affection fills his heart, and he doesn't want that to stop, because when loving Soobin isn't painful (which is, unfortunately, most of the time), it's amazing.

And as he looks at Soobin lying next to him, he can't imagine not loving him. Kai reaches out and strokes Soobin's hair, knowing he won't wake him. Soobin is a deep sleeper. That's the kind of thing you know about your best friends. Kai knows Soobin better than anyone, and he knows that he can stroke Soobin's hair and pretend for a moment that they're together.

"I love you," Kai whispers, and it's the only sound that fills the dark room. Under normal circumstances, Kai would worry about someone overhearing him, but Soobin had said that his parents were gone, and Finn had mentioned that he was staying with someone or another. Kai and Soobin are alone, and it's 5:24 am, and Kai is in bed with the boy he loves, the boy he had sex with last night (or this morning, Kai thinks, remembering that they hadn't come home until pretty late). "I love you so much, Soobin."

The words feel bitter and heavy on his tongue. Kai hates that they feel that way. He imagines that I love yous should be sweet and light.

He doesn't think they could be that way unless he knew Soobin would respond in kind. He knows that's never going to happen.


End file.
